Abstract

In the popular imagination in Sri Lanka, Roman-Dutch law is given an almost hallowed status. Yet, the history of that law, first introduced by the Dutch East India Company, has followed an inconsistent path over the last two centuries. Despite an abundance of Dutch legal records, little is known of the use of Roman-Dutch law under Dutch rule. Did the Dutch apply the laws of the Sinhalese? The judicial forum of the Landraad set up by them had a majority of European officials and a subordinate minority of local headmen. Through an empirical approach and understandings of socio-legal studies of legal pluralism, this study of the Landraad provides insights into the lived experience of colonial law.

Keywords: Legal pluralism, pluralities, colonial law, colonialism, Sinhalese law, Roman-Dutch law.

In 1904, the case Karonchihami v Angohami raised the question of whether the Dutch power in Sri Lanka had enacted a regulation prohibiting couples engaged in adultery from marrying later. Through this case, numerous Sri Lankan law students learn that in the district-level courts in operation under Dutch rule, local officials tried disputes arising among the inhabitants. The case concluded that local headmen could not be expected to have applied the principles of Roman-Dutch law. If not for Karonchihami v Angohami, it is likely that today we would know even less about the Landraad (variously translated as land, country, or district council; plural: Landraden). Judge A.J. De Sampayo, however, had not studied the Landraad and was misled into overestimating the influence of the local officials. The question of whose law the Dutch used was approached as an either/or dichotomy, far from the evidential reality of pluralities in practice that this monograph reveals. Yet, the 1904 reference is important, as it shows that a British court later recognised that indigenous laws were in use as far back as the eighteenth century. Negotiating with a pre-existing legal order was therefore seen as necessary.

In its administration of parts of Sri Lanka in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company or VOC) reluctantly acknowledged the necessity of being involved in judicial matters and variously adapted to the existing order and changing circumstances.